6 Reasons to Get Excited for Marvel’s Iron Fist

Iron Fist premieres on March 17, 2017. It is the fourth Netflix MCU series and it leads up to the premiere of The Defenders (basically a street-level, NYC-based version of the Avengers), which I am totally excited that the MCU is doing it in the first place. Iron Fist is Danny Rand, a young man who was given the mark of the Iron Fist during his stay at the mystical realm of K’un Lun.

After supposedly being dead for 15 years after the plane crash that killed his parents, Danny Rand returns to the city. But the world is different and he is not welcomed with open arms. Iron Fist is more supernatural and mystical-leaning than the other three shows, so it will interesting to see where it goes with the story and how it’ll lead to the Defenders. Here are six reasons to get excited for Iron Fist:

6. One Step Closer to the Defenders

Like I mentioned in my introduction, Iron Fist is the last series before they start working on The Defenders. In the comics, The Defenders is one of the superhero teams that live in NYC, but unlike the Avengers, the FF, and the X-Men, the Defenders tend to stay in NYC to defend. Characters like Dr. Strange and the Hulk have been members of the Defenders.

For the MCU, the Defenders are: Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist. I honestly can’t wait for these four to interact with each other. The first three are older, more angst-ridden and riddled with serious emotional and mental issues. Iron Fist is younger than them, only about twenty-five or so, and he was raised a Buddhist monk for the last fifteen years, so he’s a little more optimistic than the others. It’s not to say that he’s all sunshine and smiles—no, Iron Fist has his own demons, his anger for one is stronger than we think.

The Defenders will also possibly bring forth one of my favorite things—the friendship of Danny Rand and Luke Cage. In the comics, they have been best friends for years, hell, Luke even named his and Jessica’s daughter after Danny (and of course, Danny’s the godfather of the kid). I think that in the MCU, they will probably get off to a rocky start, being from such different backgrounds, but I can see them developing a strong friendship born of mutual respect and with the age different I can see a mentor-and-student relationship too.

5. Awesome Martial Arts

Being that Iron Fist is a martial artist, I definitely expect to see some awesome martial arts. The skills he was taught the monastery is definitely a bit more honed than even Daredevil’s skills. I suspect that we will see other skilled warriors, as from the preview I saw Madame Gao (originally appearing in Daredevil’s Season 1 as part of Kingpin’s alliance), and obviously other fighters. The fights are bound to be super awesome. It’ll also be interesting to see how they include the supernatural and mystical elements of Iron Fist’s skills into the nitty-gritty of NYC. There’s a lot of potential here for great action sequences.

4. Iron Fist’s Character Development

Naturally, since Danny (played by Finn Jones) is the main character and the hero of the story, I am interested and excited to see how his character changes and what makes him who he is as a man and a hero. From the preview and the “I am Danny Rand” teaser, he was just a little boy when his parents were killed in the plane crash. He was rescued by Buddhist monks. It’s safe to say that being a billionaire boy living in a sparse and technologically devoid mystical Buddhist monastery was a shock. Through flashbacks, we will see how Danny grew up.

On the other side, we will a grown up Danny returning to NYC as a very different person than when he left it. His childhood friends run his family’s company and they don’t believe it’s really Danny, because everyone thought he was dead. I expect that Danny will have to deal with the anger and indignation of being treated like he doesn’t belong there and that no one quite believes that he survived the plane crash in the first place. He does have an optimism, brought on probably his personality and the Buddhist tenants he was taught, so we’ll see how they fare in the city.

We’ll see how it goes, but it will fun and interesting no less.

3. The Ensemble Cast

The MCU’s Netflix series have always done an excellent job with their casting of the characters. The allies, the friends, and the enemies of the hero are very important to character growth and story development. It won’t be awesome, if the characters are boring.

Danny’s childhood friends—Joy and Ward—will no doubt have conflicting interests with the fact that Danny came back from the dead, so it seems. Joy will probably be Danny’s first love interest. Ward will probably be trying to protect the company that he’d been running from Danny, in fear of losing things. I suspect that they will be interesting to show how they changed from when Danny knew them as kids to them as adults.

Other characters in the show are Madame Gao and her gang and Claire Temple, who’s becoming a real nurse for vigilantes and superheroes it seems. Colleen Wing will be Danny’s ally. She runs a dojo of her own and she is a fighter in her own right. Danny’s biggest ally is another familiar face—Jeri Hogarth, a lawyer appearing in the first season of Jessica Jones and an episode in Daredevil. The cast looks great, honestly.

2. Big Bad of the First Season

Right now, there’s no real clue at the big bad of the season. It could be any number of people, but with the track record being so good of the Netflix MCU series for their bad guys, I’m hopeful that it’ll be as wicked as the other series. I suspect that events in Iron Fist might even lead directly to why the Defenders form in the first place. There was a lot of hints of events going on behind the scenes that Stick alluded to Matt, so I think that whatever happens in Iron Fist concerning the big bad will set things for The Defenders, especially after Daredevil’s Season 2. All we know that the enemy will be the mystical sort and Danny will have to use his own mystical powers against the big bad.

1. Iron Fist is Cool

I know, I know, there’s a lot of controversy surrounding the character of Iron Fist/Danny Rand as a ‘white savior.’ He was created in the 1970s, like Luke Cage. But, BUT, his superhero power is the mystical martial arts. Isn’t that super cool? I think it is. Right now, Iron Fist will be young and inexperienced and like a bull in a china shop, not really understanding how the world works, but if they write his character development the right way, he will eventually becoming the wise and level-headed hero that most of us know him as. After all, Iron Fist, in the comics, is not only a Defender, or a Hero for Hire, but also an Avenger and friends with many other superheroes, including training Spider-Man and other characters.

Iron Fist will be a great addition to the MCU. Honestly, I really like the Netflix series that they do. Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and Luke Cage were all great. With all these great reasons to be happy about, Iron Fist will be something fun to watch. And soon, we’ll have The Defenders miniseries!

Are you excited for what Iron Fist may bring to the MCU? Sound off in the comments or send us your thoughts on Twitter!